Chicago cop claims Rahm Emmanuel involved in Laquan McDonald cover up...

Popcorn anyone?

VIDEO: Chicago Police Officer states #RahmEmmanuel was involved in the cover-up of #LaquanMcDonald . pic.twitter.com/RHFgjQEXkf

— Yesenia Betty Boop (@YesiOnAir) December 1, 2015

Chicago FOP standing behind cop on trial for murder...

The FOP is paying for his lawyer. Police unions are a big part of what is wrong with police departments in many communities. Most police are decent people trying to do a difficult job, but it's almost impossible to weed out the bad apples because of police unions. 

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The main Chicago police union is standing behind the white officer who was charged this week with first-degree murder for gunning down a black teenager. It is facing a backlash from leaders of the city’s black community as a result.

On its website, the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), has posted a bail fund appeal for the officer, Jason Van Dyke, who is accused of shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times just six seconds after emerging from his patrol car on a street in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2014. An earlier link on the FOP's front page to a GoFundMe campaign was removed after the fundraising site said it violated a policy against its use by criminal defendants.

The FOP also is paying the lawyer representing Van Dyke, Daniel Herbert, himself a former FOP member the union pays to represent Chicago cops in misconduct cases. Funding such a defense is a common practice among U.S. police unions. 

On second thought, Chicago Public Schools won't teach fourth and fifth graders “safe anal sex”

Whoever put this on the curriculum in the first place should be fired. 

Via Inquistr:

A rumored plan by the Chicago Public Schools to teach “safe anal sex” and other unconventional sex topics to fourth graders has made its rounds on the internet. According to circulating stories, parents were allegedly appalled to find bothersome topics – reportedly including safe anal sex, female condoms, morning after pills and using lubrication – on the latest sex ed curriculum of fourth and fifth graders in Chicago,.
DNA Info released Saturday a report detailing an alleged proposal by the Chicago Public Schools for a new sex ed curriculum designed for fourth and fifth graders. Parents of students from Andrew Jackson Language Academy who reviewed the curriculum binders were reportedly “shocked” and “horrified” by the content of the proposed topics, noting that the lessons included in the curriculum were “appalling” and not age-appropriate. Angela Bryant, chairwoman of the Local School Council, denounced the alleged inclusions in the fourth-grade sex ed curriculum, saying that the topics were composed in “a manner that actually is piquing curiosity about sexual pleasure”, instead of more informative sex education.
The Chicago Public School system immediately issued a statement regarding the curriculum, saying that the inclusion of the overly-risque topics was a mistake.

New Chicago gun shop ordinance will put up to 99.5 percent of the city off-limits

The courts have been striking down Chicago's overly restrictive gun laws. Hopefully, this one is next. 

Via Guns:

Chicago council members who approved the city’s strict new gun shop license program Wednesday call it, “one of the smartest” in the country.
Among the many tenets of the city’s draft would include fees of up to $3,800 per shop, waiting periods on purchases, restrictions on location that would put most of Chicago off-limits, and videotaping sales transactions.
“I don’t think we want these kinds of things in our communities at all,” Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., speaking for many in the council, told DNAinfo Chicago.
Others on the City council’s Committee on Public Safety praised the proposed regulations, with committee chairman Ald. James Balcer calling the package, “one of the smartest, most cutting-edge licensing laws in the country.”
The city had in 2010 practically banned the sale of firearms inside its limits, only to have Federal Judge Edmond E. Chang rule the restrictions unconstitutional this January. Chang then specified that the city have new regulations in place within six months following a request from Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The 30-page proposal would require bi-yearly fees ranging from $1,100 for a “weapons dealer” who would be cleared to sell stun guns, to $3,800 for firearms dealers. In addition to this, the language of the ordinance would forbid issuing licenses to anyone working from a home, or within 500 feet of a park, school, church, or any building leased to or owned by the city, state, or federal government.
It is believed that this would put some 99.5 percent of the city off-limits to potential gun stores.

Al Sharpton hosts a gun control town hall in Chicago: Hilarity ensues...

The audience rages against the Chicago machine, calls for ouster of elected officials and wishes for a Tea Party style town hall. 

Congratulations Rahm Emanuel: Chicago has surpassed New York in murders...

Change...

Via WaPo:

The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012, surpassing even New York — despite the fact that the Second City has only one third as many residents as the Big Apple.
In new crime statistics released Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 500 murders in Chicago in 2012, up sharply from the 431 recorded in 2011. New York reported 419 murders last year, compared with 515 in 2011.
But residents of Chicago and New York were much less likely to be victims of a homicide than residents of Flint, Mich. Sixty-three murders occurred in 2012 in Flint, a city of 101,632, meaning one in every 1,613 city residents were homicide victims. Detroit, which experienced 386 homicides in 2012, was almost as unsafe; that’s enough murders to account for one in every 1,832 residents.
Keep on reading…

Gun Control Fail: 67 people have been shot during Chicago 4th of July weekend...

It looks like the criminals in Chicago still have their guns...

Via Chicago Tribune:

Eight people were shot — one fatally — in a drive-by shooting in which two men fired on a group of people at a home in the Lawndale neighborhood Saturday evening, authorities said.
At least one of the shooters used a rifle and casings were recovered at the scene, police said.
At least 67 people have been shot across the city since Wednesday afternoon during this long holiday weekend, 11 fatally.
In Saturday evening’s shooting, four people in serious-to-critical condition and one person in fair-to-serious condition were taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, while one person in serious-to-critical and one person in fair-to-serious condition were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, according to the Chicago Fire Department’s media office.

Keep on reading…

Chicagoland: $11 for a pack of smokes...

This is more likely to increase tobacco smuggling than revenue...

CHICAGO   •  Taxes on cigarettes sold in Cook County are going up by one dollar a pack.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says the tax, which takes effect Friday, is expected to generate more than $25 million annually for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System.
She says higher taxes also will help lower smoking rates, including by discouraging people from starting.

The price of a pack of cigarettes could be near $11 in Chicago, $6.67 of which is city, county and state taxes. Only New  York City -- at $6.86 in taxes -- slaps on higher taxes.

Alternate Reality: Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy claims, “Chicago does not have strict gun laws.”

Is he insane?

Via Washington Times:

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy implored the press Monday to stop characterizing the city as being strict on guns.

“One of the things that I would like to again try to clear up, and I ask you to please stop adopting the rhetoric of the gun advocates,” Mr. McCarthy said. “Chicago does not have strict gun laws.” [...]

Despite the superintendent’s claims, Chicago has some of the strictest gun-control mandates in the country. “Assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines are completely banned and, until a 2010 Supreme Court decision, so were handguns.

Keep on reading…

More killed in Chicago in 2012 than Coalition deaths in Afghanistan. If only there was some kind of law to prevent this...

In 2012, there were 405 Coalition deaths in Afghanistan. Chicago had 532 homicides in 2012. Chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the country....

Chicagoland: Shooting spike 49 percent in November

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation...

Via CNS News:

There were 192 shootings in Chicago throughout the month of November – a 49 percent increase from a year earlier – according to police records obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

In November of 2011, Chicago recorded 129 shootings compared to the 192 shootings this November.  Police records also reveal that shootings increased more than 11 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 compared with a year earlier.

Total homicides in Chicago rose to 480 for the first eleven months of 2012; a 21 percent increase from last year.  On November 30, 2012, there were four fatal shootings within the city.  These murders brought the homicide total to 38 for the month, just above the 37 recorded in November of last year.

Despite having some of the strictest gun laws in the country, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans on restricting gun ownership further by banning individuals with a violent misdemeanor conviction from getting a gun permit for five years.  The mayor also hopes to ban convicted felons from ever owning a gun.

Keep on reading…

Public Employee Union Alert: Chicago teachers turn down 16% raise on 76,000 a year salary and go on strike...

The teachers are shameful and Chicago politicians are shameful for allowing public employee unions to take precedent over children's education.

Via NRO:

The smartest parents in Chicago right now are those whose kids attend charter schools, private schools, or parochial schools. Those institutions don’t employ Chicago’s unionized public-school teachers, who went out on strike this morning for the first time in 25 years.

The coverage of the strike has obscured some basic facts. The money has continued to pour into Chicago’s failing public schools in recent years. Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits. The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year. Yet the teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase over four years at a time when most families are not getting any raises or are looking for work.

The city is being bled dry by the exorbitant benefits packages negotiated by previous elected officials. Teachers pay only 3 percent of their health-care costs and out of every new dollar set aside for public education in Illinois in the last five years, a full 71 cents has gone to teacher retirement costs.

Keep on reading…

The Chicago Way: Democratic state lawmaker from Chicago allegedly recorded taking a bribe. Gets 76 percent of the vote.

It probably helped him at the polls.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Democratic state lawmaker from Chicago charged last week with accepting a bribe overwhelmingly won his party's primary on Tuesday, reinforcing the reputation of the nation's third-largest city for turning a blind eye to corruption.

Derrick Smith, appointed a year ago to fill a vacancy in the Illinois House of Representatives, was leading with 76 percent of the vote with more than 80 percent of the ballots counted, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.

Federal prosecutors said they recorded Smith accepting $7,000 in cash from a government informant in exchange for writing a letter supporting a state grant for a day care center.

Smith was indicted by a grand jury, arrested, and freed on bond. He has yet to enter a plea in the case. If convicted, Smith could face a maximum of ten years in prison.

Obama's Hometown Named Corruption Capitol of America

From the corruption Capitol of America comes the most corrupt administration in the history of America...

Via Chicago Tribune:

[...] Instead, Chicago is the corruption capital of America, and Illinois is the third most-corrupt state, according to a new academic study on the science of sleaze.

"Unfortunately, when it comes to political corruption, we're numero uno," Dick Simpson, head of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-author of the report, told me Wednesday. "It's not something we should be proud of. But this is the corruption capital."

The symptoms are obvious to those with eyes to see. Voter registration in the city is at a record low. Chicago voters have had their brains beaten in by a succession of tyrants and they're beyond numb. And many, sick of the corruption and its cost, have left. They leave the city, they leave the state.

The political bosses make sure the voter turnout stays low in primaries. When they need higher turnouts, the cry sounds over race or gender and the tribes respond as they've been trained to respond over the generations. It's always about control. [...] Keep on reading...

$45-million Cook County Homeland Security program declared a complete waste of money

Perhaps it wasn't a complete waste. Some of President Obama's cronies could have been enriched.

Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure.

The failed Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work, missing records and untrained first responders according to a report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The report, to be released Monday but obtained by The Sun-Times and NBC5 News, found “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted.”

Under Project Shield, two police squad cars in all 128 Cook County suburbs were to be fitted with cameras capable of feeding live video to a central command. In addition, fixed mounted cameras were to be installed to feed pictures in case of a terrorist attack or emergency in Cook County.

A six-month investigation by the IG found “equipment was not working, was removed, or could not be properly operated.”

Investigators visited 15 municipalities between January and June last year and found “missing records, improper procurement practices, unallowable costs and unaccountable inventory items.”...

What is no longer operational is Project Shield. New County Board President Toni Preckwinkle ended the program last summer after a very troubled seven-year history.  Read more here...

U.S. Senator Mark Kirk today called for a federal criminal probe into the failed program. 

Palin Derangement Syndrome: Chicago Style

Chicago Police Chief blames Sarah Palin and NRA for Murders

Speaking to parishoners at St. Sabina Church earlier this month, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy took to the microphone after Father Michael Pfleger spoke about gun control.

McCarthy said the topic of race is a sensitive issue "because everybody's afraid of race" but that he wasn't afraid to broach to subject.

"So here's what I want to tell you. See, let's see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What, what did they all have in common? Anybody getting' scared? Government sponsored racism."

"Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country, and tell me if I'm crazy. Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms, into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children," he said.

"The NRA does not like me, and I'm okay with that. We've got to get the gun debate back to center, and it's got to come with the recognition of who's paying the price for the gun manufacturers being rich and living in gated communities," McCarthy said.

McCarthy illustrated his point by recalling a crime scene investigation while he was a police official in Newark, New Jersey where five children were shot, two of whom were killed. McCarthy said when he got home, he turned on his television to unwind and find an episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" showing.

"She was caribou hunting and talking about the right to bear arms. Why wasn't she at the crime scene with me?"

Court Ruling Knocks Rahm Emanuel Off Chicago Mayoral Ballot

Chicago politics will prevail in the end and Rahm Emanuel will get back on the ballot.

(NBC Chicago) –Rahm Emanuel’s residency fight just took a turn for the worse.

The Illinois Appellate Court ruled 2-1 to overturn a Chicago Board of Elections decision to allow Rahm Emanuel on the mayoral ballot.

Judges Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall ruled against Emanuel and Justice Bertina Lampkin voted in favor of his inclusion.

Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun won't release tax returns "Because I don't want to,"

Chicago Mayoral candidate, and former US Senator from Illinois, Carol Moseley Braun is refusing to release her tax returns. The reason is simple. She doesn't "want to."

Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun today said she won't make her tax returns public before next month's election.

"Because I don't want to," Braun said when asked why she wouldn't be releasing them in the time before the Feb. 22 election.

Fellow candidates Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico already have released their tax returns. You can read about Emanuel's by clicking here and Chico's clicking here. City Clerk Miguel del Valle, a mayoral candidate, also has released his returns. You can read about them by clicking here.

Is Rahm Qualified to Run for Chicago Mayor?

Rahm Emanuel's lack of residency may disqualify him according to election lawyers.

The Chicago Sun Times reported:

The first question isn’t: Can Rahm win? It’s: Can Rahm run?

Sunday, Rahm Emanuel announced in a video posted on a website that he is preparing to run for mayor of Chicago. But two of Chicago’s top election lawyers say the state’s municipal code is crystal clear that a candidate for mayor must reside in the town for a year before the election.

That doesn’t mean they must simply own a home in the city that they rent out to someone else. They must have a place they can walk into, keep a toothbrush, hang up their jacket and occasionally sleep, the lawyers say.

Ed Schultz Ignorant Statement of the Day (video)

Ed Schultz is unfamiliar with under the Posse Comitatus Act. He wants President Obama to send withdrawn Iraq troops to Chicago.